Opinion

Opinion

I was probably like many other sports fans Friday night who are crazed enough to get notifications on their phones about any kind of news possible — my reasons are trades, injuries to my fantasy football or baseball teams or general news happening.

Prior to Thanksgiving, I was thinking about things to be thankful for, when one day I noticed a couple of tow trucks trying to help a driver stranded on Interstate 29, inside lane no less, in morning rush hour traffic in Kansas City North. There’s something positive, I thought. Those two truck operators were willing to work out in heavy, fast-moving traffic.

It feels like we’d had a double whammy this week. A painful election has quivered to an end, at least I hope it has unless the vote counting is dragging on in close contests. Plus daylight savings time has ended. The week with shorter days also started with cloudy, rainy gloom. Working folks found themselves driving home in unfamiliar darkness. This early November has its challenges.

Many times I’ve stepped into a park and felt, this a good place, I feel good to be here. It’s always nice to have affirmation, and lately I’ve been getting that from reading about the health benefits about contact with nature. Parks are happy places.

I’m on the final stage of my walk on the Camino Portugues. I keep in mind that my journey’s end has to be on or before Sept. 26, 2018 at Santiago, Spain. Santiago has become one of the great centers of the Christian pilgrimage. I’ve been fortunate and blessed to have been able to have walked where many heroes of Spain, legends, and Saints have stood and walked. This includes El Cid, kings and queens of Spain, and where Caesar and Charlemagne have walked.

On Sept. 14 I started out on my second Camino pilgrimage, the Camino Portugues.

After an overnight train from Madrid I finally arrived in Porto, the capital of the north and Portugal’s second city. I had hiked in the Swiss and French Alps for two weeks prior to starting my Camino journey and accumulated a few things while in Madrid.

“Our life is a journey, and when we stop moving, things go wrong,” Pope Francis said recently to a few fellow cardinals.

I first completed the Camino Frances on Sept. 26, 2015. This marked one year after open heart surgery. Shortly after heart surgery I began to see things differently and set out to achieve a dream and a goal to honor my heritage and my dear departed Mother and Father.

The tires screamed and smoked as his brakes squealed, and in a last-ditch desperate move he swung the truck’s right front bumper against a concrete highway barrier bordering the exit ramp. Inches from my back bumper, the semi-trailer truck lurched to a stop. Another foot or two, he would have kicked my car out into heavy traffic moving at 65 mph. Traffic had stalled and the truck waiting too long to begin slowing his rig.

here is a chance by the end of this weekend the Kansas City Royals will have 100 losses. That’s not a benchmark you want to reach by any means but many true Royals fans have witnessed it many times over the past few decades.

In the beginning, spectators flocked to bleacher seats or sat in chairs along sidelines and foul lines to watch athletes compete. Then electronics such as radio and television created the armchair spectator, while the tribal gladiators still competed upon the field or on the court. Now, athletes and spectators alike can settle into arm chairs. Welcome to the world of esports.

If you’re reading this column, you’re already a supporter of journalism, especially community journalism. I hope in these politically charged and fractured times, you will also be a defender. When family, friends and strangers converse about the topics of the day, including media, we need you.

In this week’s issue you will see a 28-page fall sports preview. Of the three sports seasons we cover, this is the biggest undertaking just due to the number of teams that the schools have. I had a lot of help along the way from friends writing stories and proofing the copy.

A quarter century ago, the murky, stained, stinking water from the Flood of ’93 began receding from Platte County farms, businesses, roads and homes. Memories have not receded for those who witnessed bluff-to-bluff water in the Missouri River bottom, a moving lake in the Platte River valley, and big water spreading out along Bee Creek and lower Line Creek.

This past week was a very fun, yet, trying one as a parent. My son, Carter, turned two on Saturday. Sometimes it is still a bit surreal to know I have a son. My daughter is 15 and I was so used to raising her and remember things she went through, I figured I’d be a little prepared for a second child.

I was holding off writing a column about the Royals and Mike Moustakas until he was traded. I was thinking with Tuesday, July 31 being the deadline, he would for sure be a former Royal by then and my thinking was correct. He became a former Royal late last week when he was traded to Milwaukee.

Politicians and pollsters desperately want our votes and to know how we’re leaning on the issues. Two to three times a day, on some days, my telephone rings, I drop what I’m doing to answer, and someone on the other end of my land line asks if I’d like to participate in a scientific survey.

The cows are standing in the ponds to cool off, cars are clustered under trees for shade, if a driver is lucky enough to find a tree in the parking lot. Self driving cars perhaps will have computers noting what parking lots have shade.

I had an idea early this week for my column and I did a lot of research on the subject to make sure I sounded somewhat informed. The topic at the time was still kind of a hot topic — the immigration rules and how things have changed in recent weeks with the separation of children and the parents and then President Trump making it stop.

The Platte Land Trust is celebrating 20 years of volunteer work to keep scenic open spaces in Platte County’s future. Dedication in large measure is needed for a volunteer group to carry forward for two decades. The Land Trust has earned our trust that they are indeed dedicated.